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EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH 



BY 



ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, 

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES, 
Delivered in the Secession Convention of Georgia, January, 1861. 



This step, [the secession of Georgia,] once taken, can never 
be recalled ; and all the baleful and withering consequences that 
must follow, (as you will see,) will rest on the Convention for all 
coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely 
South desolated by the demon of war which this act of yours will 
inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving 
harvests shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and faery 
car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in 
ashes ; all the horrors and desolations of war upon us— who but this 
Convention will be held responsible for it? and who but him who 
shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure (as I 
honestly think and believe) shall be held to strict account for this 
suicidal act, by the present generation, and probably cursed and ex- 
ecrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating 
ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpe- 

trate ' 

Pause I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you 
can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments— what 
reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it 
will bring upon us ? What reason can you give to the nations ot 
the earth to justify it 1 They will be the calm and deliberate judges 
in the case ; and to what cause or one overt act can you name or 
point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has 
the North assailed ! What interest of the South has been invaded ! 
What justice has been denied ? and what claim founded in justice 
and right has been withheld ? Can either of you to-day name one 
governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the 
government of Washington, of which the South has a right to com- 
plain * I challenge the answer ! While, on the other hand, let me 
show the facts, (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advo- 
cate of the North ; but I am here the friend, the firm friend and 



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lover of the South mid her institutions, and for this reason I speak 
thus plainly and faithfully, tor yours, mine, and every other man's 
interest, the words of truth and soberness,) of which 1 wish you to 
judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, 
and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our 
country. 

When we of the South demanded the slave trade, or the importa- 
tion of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield 
the right for twenty years 1 When we asked a three-fifths repre- 
sentation in Congress for our slaves, was it not granted ? When we 
asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the 
recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incor- 
porated in the Constitution? and again ratified and strengthened in 
the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 ? 

But do you reply, that in many instances they have violated this 
compact, and have not been faithful to their engagements ? As indi- 
viduals and local communities they may have done so; but not by 
the sanction of government ; for that has always been true to South- 
ern interests. Again, gentlemen, look at another fact: when wo 
have asked that more territory should be added, that we might 
spread the institution of slavery, have thej r not yielded to our de- 
mands in giving us Louisiana, Florida and Texas, out of which four 
States have been carved, and ample territory for four more to be 
added in due time, if you by this unwise and impolitic act do not 
destroy this hope, and, perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last 
slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America 
and Mexico were ; or by the vindictive decree of a universal eman- 
cipation, which may reasonably be expected to follow 1 

But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed 
change of our relation to the general government ? We have always 
had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as 
united as we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents 
chosen from the South ; as well as the control and management of 
most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of 
Southern Presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the Exec- 
utive department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have 
had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North ; 
although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the 
Free States, yet a majority of the Court has always been from the 
South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpre- 
tation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we 
have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the Legislative 
branch of government. In choosing the presiding Presidents (pro 
tern.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speak- 
ers of the House, we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. 
While the majority of the Representatives, from their greater popu- 
lation, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally 
secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and con- 
trols the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control 
in every other department of the general government. Attorney- 
Generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. 
Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. 



s 

While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic 
agents abroad is clearly from the Free States, from their greater 
commercial interests, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as 
to secure the world markets for our cotton, tobacco and sugar on the 
best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offi- 
ces of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers 
and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of Clerks, Au 
ditors and Comptrollers filling the Executive department ; the re 
cords show for the last fifty years, that of the three thousand thus 
employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we 
have but one-third of the white population of the Republic. 

Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we 
have a great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of 
supporting government. From official documents, we learn that a 
fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support 
of government has uniformly been raised from the North. 

Pause, now, while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully 
and candidly these important items. Look at another necessary 
branch of government, and learn from stern statistical facts how 
matters stand in that department. I mean the mail and post-office 
privileges that we now enjoy under the general government, as it has 
been for years past. The expense for the transportation of the mail 
in the Free States was, by the report of the Postmaster General for 
the .\ ear 1860, a little over $13,000,000, while the income was $19,- 
000,000. But in the Slave States, the transportation of the mail was 
$14,716,000, while the revenue from the same was $8,001,026, leaving 
a deficit of $6,115,785, to be supplied by the North for our accommo- 
dation, and without it we must have been entirely cut off from this 
most essential branch of government. 

Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dol- 
lars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thou- 
sands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sac- 
rifices upon the altar of your ambition, — and for what, we ask again 1 
Is it for the overthrow of the American government, established by 
our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and 
blood, and founded on the broad principles of Right, Justice, and Hu- 
manity? And, as such, I must declare here, as I have often done 
before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of 
statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and 
freest government — the most equal in its rights — the most just in its deci- 
sions — the most lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring in its princi- 
ples to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone rtpon. 

Now, lor you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, 
under which we have lived for more than three quarters of a century 
— in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our 
domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us, with 
peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and 
rights unassailed — is the height of madness, folly and wickedness, 
to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote. 



VIEWS OF JEFFEfiSON DAVIS IN 1860. 



In a debate which took place in the Senate of the United States, 
in May, 1860, between Jefferson Davis and Stephen A. Doug- 
las, with reference to slavery in the Territories, the former scouted 
the charge that there was any design at the South to dissolve the 
Union, in the following terms : — 

The last point which I will notice is his reference to the South- 
ern League. He reads from the Southern League constitution, or 
whatever it is — I do not know — to show that there was an organiza- 
tion to dissolve the Union. Does the Senator believe there was a 
lodge in that Southern League outside of the State of Alabama? 

Mr. Douglas. I did suppose so, for the reason that Mr. Yancey 
refers to it in his letter to Slaughter in terms of approval; and in 
the letter to Pryor, explaining the Slaughter letter, he says there is 
a well-matured plan throughout the Southern States, and approved 
by the best men in Virginia ; evidently referring to the Southern 
League as spreading throughout the Southern States, and then ex- 
isting in Virginia, with the approval of the best men. 

Mr. Davis. I know very little about other people's secrets, and 
have very few of my own to keep ; but I will say, that if there was a 
lodge outside of Alabama, I do not know of it. Further, I will say, 
that I do not believe there was. And more, I will say, from the 
best information I have, there was not one hundred in the organiza- 
tion in Alabama ; I have been told, about seventy-five. I do not 
think the Union was in any danger from them. I have great confi- 
dence in the strength of the Union. Every now and then I hear that it 
is about to tumble to pieces, that somebody is going to introduce a 
new plank into. the platform, and if he does, the Union must tumble 
down; until at last I begin to think it is such a rickety old platform 
that it is impossible to prop it up; but then I bring my own judg- 
ment to bear, instead of relying on witnesses, and I come to the 
conclusion that the. Union is strong and safe — strong in its power, as 
well as in the affections of the people; that it holds high prizes yet, and 
the danger is that it will overwhelm the States by its wide-spread 
patronage. The danger is consolidation; and I wish it was in my 
power to-day to strike three-fifths of the patronage of this Govern- 
ment from it, that the States might rise in their relative dignity, 
and the Union be less strong than it is — more strong perhaps in the 
affections of a virtuous people, but less powerful in its influence 
upon those who follow in the wake of spoils. But, sir, I have very 
little apprehension that the Union is about to be destroyed by sev- 
enty-five men anywhere; vert/ little apprehension that this great Gov- 
ernment can be crushed by a secret organization. No, sir ; it will require 
men, brave men, intelligent men, united and acting openly, defend- 
ing their firesides, under the promptings of the highest motive that 
sustained our fathers in the Revolution, whenever war shall success- 
fully be waged against this Government. 



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